The tunnels of Gamma-1 were oppressively dark. The navigator held one lantern at the head of the group, while the man at the back held another. The lanterns themselves were glass spheres which contained the re-animated corpses of firefly-like creatures. The creatures’ bodies emitted a dazzling blue light that was like a star in the black of the tunnels. The navigator herself required tinted goggles in order not to be blinded will holding the lantern. Yet despite this shining beacon, the group could not see more than twenty metres ahead of themselves. The inky darkness quelled the light so strongly it may have been a wall of smoke.

  The navigator checked her stopwatch.

  “That’s time, take a rad pill. One for the sickness to if you need it.”

  Anya and the others reached into their pouches, retrieved a green pellet each, and swallowed them readily. Her skin tingled, and she briefly felt as if it was being stretched and pulled from all directions.

  The group pressed onwards. The tunnel began to shrink, and as the concrete ceiling grew closer and closer, a large mural came into view along the wall. In large letters of peeling yellow paint: ST. MOROS, below which were several lines of text in a range of different scripts Anya did not recognise. The first of these was runic in nature, the others with more fluid lines, and the final one resembling the Cyrillic script.

  The tunnel had become barely wide enough to fit the group. The navigator ordered them into a tighter formation. The air grew thicker, and there was a constant stream of water running down the middle of the tunnel.

  Kite spotted a set of carvings in the wall, he called out to the navigator, “hey, we got C.A. symbols here — they look recent too.”

  The navigator moved down from the head of the group to meet him. She inspected the carvings. The first was a rough square with a diagonal line struck through its centre. The second, a diamond containing three holes punched in a triangular formation. The final carving was the faintest — two diamonds appearing to intersect one another.

  “I only recognise the first one,” Kite stated.

  “Formid, yes — danger. A Cartographer passed through here recently and encountered not only multiple entities but significant Perception instabilities as well.” She turned to the Irises, “Ready your weapons.”

  The lantern became more and more ineffectual as they descended further into the tunnel, which continued to converge.

  “Body ahead.” The navigator called out. The group stopped. In a shallow puddle ahead of her was the limp body of a young man. She crouched down beside him and rummaged through his jacket, retrieving a badge. “He was one of ours, Kestrel-83. I’ll take his badge, we can’t exactly give him a proper resting place right now.”

  The body itself was in a poor condition, it was evident the man had been attacked. His left arm had been torn off, and a bloody gash ran down the middle of his chest. In contrast to these injuries however, his legs were fading — visibly transparent, with Anya able to make out the shape of the skeleton within. His eyes too appeared to be missing, yet his face was unharmed.

  “What happened to his eyes?” Anya shuddered.

  “They’ve been scattered across Tanglements. ‘There is no death — only imperception’ is not just a fancy thing we say. No matter how messed up you are, the Tanglements will always try to keep you alive long enough for it to scatter you throughout the instances. If the body doesn’t fade then you know they got the good way out.” Kite explained.

  “What happens when you’re scattered?”

  One of the Irises interjected, “Your consciousness is stretched across the Tanglements, you will perceive everything until you cannot perceive anymore. At least, that’s what we guess happens.”

  A sudden sound came echoing down the tunnel. A metallic clink that bounced around the group like a buzzing insect. The scouts immediately turned to face the eminence, their rifles held high. The navigator was quick to draw her pistol. She carefully extracted the stopwatch from her pocket and turned it off.

  A second clink. Then a thud. The navigator held a hand up and gestured for the group to move backwards. Anya had her pistol drawn, she held it close. The navigator turned off the lantern, the creatures inside dropping dead once more. She took a flare from underneath her coat and lit it. The flash of pink light pierced Anya’s eyes, until the navigator threw the flame out into the darkness — the overwhelming brightness receding to the faintest of glows.

  From the darkness came a ticking. A fast, low ticking that reverberated throughout the tunnel like a mechanical growl. The navigator gestured once more, and the group parted — Anya following along — to allow the man at the back to step through to the front.

  “Verdict?” He said quietly as he began to take metal parts from his backpack and assemble them into a larger device.

  “Dog.” The navigator whispered back.

  The growling continued, with periodic metal thuds growing closer and closer. The man had finished putting together the device, which took on the appearance of a large and unwieldy cannon. It was a metal box propped up on two stilts, with a wide cylindrical barrel protruding from its centre.

  “Fire.”

  A deafening snap rang out. A sudden rising tone, then a gust of air rushed back at the group. Ahead of them came a piercing oscillating wail and a painful screech. The whole tunnel was lit momentarily, and in the flash Anya saw the malformed shape of a large mechanical dog. Its body filled the tunnel, and its face bore two crystalline eyes of a sickly green hue.

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  The creature lunged at them, yet the blast from the weapon was swift — and it cut clean through the mechanical body. The metal paws that were as large as her head melted away and disintegrated in blink of an eye. The blast hit its face, and the roaring jaws presenting rows of crooked and sharp teeth met the same fate of annihilation. Even in the split-second moment however, Anya could see that the dog’s mouth was organic.

  “Push through!” The navigator cried out, and at once the tunnel was awash with gunfire. The rounds were of all different colours, as each scout held their own unique weapons, some of which appeared cobbled together from other more refined firearms.

  The demolitions officer heaved the cannon off of the ground and prepared to fire it a second time. A large casing was ejected from its rear, clattering on the ground below. The group advanced. Mechanical howls came echoing down the tunnel towards them. They walked through the mangled corpse of the first dog, its surviving eye glaring at them as they passed.

  A second dog lurched out from the tunnel. The cannon was fired again. This time the blast went directly towards the beast’s head, obliterating it in an instant and sending the remaining chunks of its body flying towards them. One of the pieces rammed into Kite and sent him tumbling backwards. Anya rushed to his aid, turning from the group and reaching out her arm towards him. He grabbed her hand and she began to help him stand, when glimmer caught her eye in the darkness behind him.

  “Behind you!” She shouted, and with her free arm brought the pistol to bear and fired into the darkness. The blue bolt rushed by and revealed two smaller mechanical dogs, which lunged at her immediately.

  Kite leg go of Anya’s arm and hurled his rifle over his head. He flicked a switch on its side and pulled the trigger. A grid of light flashed on one of the dogs before it was instantly destroyed, yet the second dog had anticipated the attack and had managed to dodge the blast. A case fell from Kite’s rifle and came to rest in a puddle below.

  The remaining dog ran into Anya, sending her crashing to the ground and putting a gash in her leg with its claw. It then jumped away, and threw itself into the rest of the group. A scout cried out as the dog’s claws embedded themselves in his back and tore down his skin. Anya swivelled round on the ground and fired at the dog, missing most of her shots yet landing one in its hind leg. The dog scrambled for solid ground as it began to rise into the air, allowing the scout to hit it with the butt of his rifle and dislodge the creature from his body. Blood oozed from his wounds and began pooling below him. Kit had managed to stand up and was quick to plant a set of rounds in the still surviving dog, pinning it to the ceiling.

  Anya and Kite ran to the injured scout and helped him catch up with the group. They had progressed hardly a dozen meters since the first attack. Another flash lit up the tunnel, sending a third larger dog tumbling to the ground in pieces.

  “I’m all out of cannon charges.” The demolitions officer cried. A fourth dog lunged from the darkness, clasped its jaws around his head, and tore it clean off. Kite brought his rifle to bear and destroyed the dog’s head — the man’s still inside. The tunnel went quiet.

  The navigator looked around. She looked down at the headless body in front of her, then turned to look at Kite and Anya behind her.

  “Losses?”

  The two turned to look at the body of the injured scout, who had collapsed on the ground in pool of blood. Anya retrieved the badge, Kestrel-71, from his collar and handed it to the navigator. She paused while looking at it.

  “He registered about ten days ago.” She pocketed the badge alongside that of the dead scout they had found prior. “Ammunition?”

  “I’ve got one mag left,” one of the Irises stated.

  “Same here,” the other replied.

  “I’m down half way,” the remaining scout said.

  The navigator turned to Anya and Kite again, “and you two?”

  “Two mags.” Anya stated.

  “I used about two-thirds of my main rounds,” Kite rummaged through his pockets, “and that was the last of my Perception Rounds.”

  “What kind are they?”

  “Conduit Charges, Gamma.”

  “Check him.” The navigator gestured to the dead scout.

  Kite walked over to the body and checked it over. He looked back and shook his head.

  “Just normal rounds.” He gestured to the other scout and help up a box of ammunition, “can you use these?”

  “I think they’ll fit.” He replied, and Kite threw the box over to him.

  The navigator spoke again, “The tunnel should widen not too far from here. Assume a pentagonal formation, Kestrel-41 guard the rear.”

  Kite moved to the back of the group and watched for threats from behind. The group continued walking one more, with the bodies of two friends left in their wake.